I’ve been thinking. I feel like a lot of NASCAR fans don’t understand the consequences of a lot of their wants. What’s something NASCAR fans complain about or beg for that if NASCAR actually did it, they would hate it and beg for it to be changed?

I think it's fair to say that Joey Logano is probably the most disliked active driver in NASCAR at the moment. Whether the hate comes from his early career antics or the circumstances around his championships, he gets heavily boo'd regularly, despite developing into a pretty clean driver in recent years. I don't want to start an argument about if people should or should not like Logano. I'm more interested in evaluating if/when the fans will soften on him the way they have on so many controversial drivers in the past.

Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon experienced this, being really divisive early in their careers, but eventually becoming widely respected and even beloved. We've seen a similar thing happen to guys like Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart. In recent years, fans even warmed up to Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. While sentiment is never universal, it seems clear that the hate train doesn't last forever, and drivers who stick around long enough and accomplish enough eventually earn the respect of the fans and become broadly liked.

Logano is in his 18th year of full-time Cup competition at this point. He's a multi-time champion, sits at #20 on the all-time wins list with 40 career victories, and is a Daytona 500 winner. That's certified veteran status. Seeing people cheer for Logano when he climbed out of his car after his scary Talladega flip made me wonder when (or if) Logano is going to get the same shift in fan sentiment broadly.

Now that the Playoffs are gone, it feels like some fans are softening on him somewhat, but he still gets the loudest boo's in the garage. My thinking is that the new format will contribute to people liking him more, because him performing well will feel less gimmicky, and he'll experience some level of popularity during the last couple years of his career. I'm curious what y'all think. Will the fans ever broadly like Logano, or is there something different about his reputation that will keep him from getting that treatment?

On the final lap , Stenhouse is entering T4 @ 195 MPH . Hill was @ 197 MPH but due to contact, drops to 191 MPH entering , Larson roughly at 192 MPH

Stenhouse is stalling out, bad. Going 188 MPH at the end of T4. While Hill ( with no bump/help ) is @ 191 MPH and gets soooo close to his bumper before his car dies . Larson is also going roughly 191 at the end of T4.

Stenhouse is stuck at 188-187 MPH all the way from the exit of T4 through out the Tri-Oval and to the finish. Meanwhile Larson is by the grace of god & drafting ( Ross never bumped him ) is peaking @ 199 MPH in the middle of the tri-oval and stalls out to 195 mph at the line .

The fact hill lost 6 mph and got so close to Stenhouse on drafting alone in wild . And Larson to peak at 199 is insane aswell .

Also since videos are locked , here’s a post with all three cams (+ helicopter cam), speed is on top left https://x.com/sheiby636/status/2114869433902698598?s=46

Every time we go to drafting track the story at start of weekend how teams want to save so no practice and such. Team owners are people worth millions. I say going forward since track activities are now dead. Allow any team that doesn’t want to save money 3 hours of open track for teams at track that weekend.

I feel like Hocevar having zero help was completely lost in all the chaos of the race. For months now we've heard drivers say they wouldn't help him, but it was hard to believe they'd stand by it. Then yesterday the 77 drove to the front only to immediately fall to the back as zero drivers wanted to work with him. Seemed like a genuinely big thing that got skipped over.

Before Hocevar fans try to jump all over me, I like the guy and wouldn't mind seeing him win. My point is only that we've heard drivers say they'd make him pay for months, and they all finally stuck to it.

Cleetus says something will be at FF in 2027 with "NASCAR's name on it". Any ideas? I've seen people speculate it could be the ARCA East replacement for Rockingham? Not sure if there is any basis to those rumors?

got on X after the race and all I seen were Ryan blaney fans blaming cindric and logano (as usual) calling them both bad teammates, now I’m no blaney hater by any means but man why do 12 fans just keep complaining about his teammates when they literally do nothing, “he has terrible teammates” or “they’d be nothing without him” like cmon, it’s gotten way worse since 2021, like after every ss race that’s all I see is them blaming either cindric or joey because they couldn’t be clearing a path for king Ryan the whole race, like genuinely, a lot of his fans are easily the coolest out of the whole sport, but some of yall are just toxic

I'm sure a win for the other contenders the next 2 races would help but I don't even know if that's enough. It seems like one of the other driver's has to be perfect just to have a shot. Then you're hoping Larson has a bad day like at Vegas which doesn't seem likely. I'm just curious.

Okay I’m watching the race I missed yesterday so I can see all the things everyone has been talking about. This weekend was busy so I missed the race and Sunday night Football.
64 year old widow grew up in Charleston SC my dad built Fords for Bud Moore back in the old days. I’m not really pulling hard this year for anyone. After losing my nascar hubby 2 years ago I just couldn’t watch without him. We have been to a lot of races in the southeast. One we never got to was Bristol race that used to be at night. We have camped in the infield in Darlington as we live in SC. Have family near Charlotte so we have been to more races there. Atlanta, Talladega, Darlington, and the old Pickens Speedway that I’m reading they are trying to save it. Charlotte was always our favorite but we were at the Darlington Race where Kurt Busch and Ricky Craven. We are in the famous poster that came out after that race! It was awesome!! March 16, 2003. There have been 2 more since but in NASCAR Cup it was Kansas with Kyle Larson over Chris Buescher May 5, 2024. Hubby was still living then so we were sad. But that Bush vs Craven was so cold but it lasted forever! It was awesome!! We have met a lot of the drivers. Our favorite was a meet and greet at Charlotte with his favorite driver Dale Jarrett and Michael Waltrip my favorite who was with Napa. We got our cars signed and I won a drawing to ride in the pace car, but it rained so we got garage passes and have great pictures. We met Alan Bestwick and my husband owned a printing business and had the only UPS drop off and delivery store for years. He bought his Crown Victoria at Dale Jarrets car Ford dealership, he was a firefighter first responder and that was his volunteer personal response vehicle. He knew more UPS drivers from all over the place.
We have met so many drivers over the years. Jeremy Mayfield and Ward Burton almost ran over us at one Charlotte race. We met Denny Hamlin when he had the FedEx car and he was snobby. He could not stand Kyle Busch and made tee shirts that he gave to friends that went to one of the Charlotte races that said anybody but Kyle Bush!! We had strangers taking our pictures. It was funny but I guess now he’s up there talking race stuff with him in heaven.
And we met country singers, and Benny Parsons stepped all over me and kept walking in the garage area in Charlotte! That was funny!
Ok gotta watch! Had to share my NASCAR days in memory of my hubby.
Hamlin just got caught speeding on Pit Road!

The same 3 teams that won championships are each leading their own respective series. I am in favor of the chase and am still happy it’s back but it’s wild to see somehow the cream rises to the top

With so many cars that can wreck triage i feel i very important. if you have one of those huge hits. its should tell them so they know who's in the most danger. g force in racing is the best indicator of risk to driver.

Obviously, upside down is important, and so is fire. But sometimes people don't understand how hard a hit is until minutes later after video plays.

the should have a coded alarm system so you have orange, red and like Riley Herbst that should be a black warning, which means unless a car is on fire. you get your ass to them and treat it like hes bleeding out. maybe even have another code for smoke and the visable flames

Watching NASCAR and IndyCar response is telling. the fact we have done so much to save many lives. better crash structures, hans system, the walls and so much more. yet like a car, the tires are the most important part, as that's where everything meets the road. that the medical crew

im only lightly tied to the risk management world. Figuring out "but what if?" but if i can see glaring issues of unfit chubby medical crew. Waddling to the driver. Yes, physical fitness is very important. in speed to get to them, being able to move them and being able to climb wrecked car. not saying they don't know what they are doing. But IndyCar feels like the military. NASCAR feels like that military that took LSD sometimes.

I honestly feel like they might be getting complacent. Riley Herbst hit was a hit that could of been "the widowmaker". and i know for a fact that that amount of time getting to him, NASCAR....you got lucky as that's not acceptable even if a car is upside down.

NASCAR, hit me up if you want some advice. im on reddit so you know i know my stuff. and im not even that drunk

anyone else got any ideas?i

again not saying they are all bad and not brave people who are talented. and care. but i feel like they can do better and should do better. that crash should be a wake up call

I've been getting back into reading as an adult and I've also been getting back into NASCAR as an adult and I've been wondering if anyone has any good reading recommendations on the subject. My dad has a book called Remembering Dale Earnhardt that I'm looking forwards to reading where other drivers share stories about him throughout the years but was wondering what else was out there. Thanks! 💞🏁

I tried searching the sub for this and I didn’t come up with anything besides a post from 10 years ago.

It seems like it was a dumb idea to get rid of this. Was there ever a reason for it?

Since Ross Chastain helped Larson win (and practically clinch the championship) yesterday, will Rick Hendrick give him permission to start driving like himself again? It would make next season more interesting. I'm not a Chastain fan, but have missed the excitement he used to bring.

It is entirely realistic that Kyle Larson clinches the championship at Martinsville next weekend. If that happens, there will be nothing to race for at Homestead other than the race win. That would be the first non-exhibition race with no championship implications in 23 years.

Given that scenario, what do we expect to happen to TV ratings and overall sentiment? Given the viewership this Chase, I can’t realistically see it dropping much further. I would be really interested in seeing how the numbers compare to the finale from the past few years. I’m probably more likely to watch if I don’t have to watch “playoff racing” for another week honestly.

If the race is held without championship implications and does well or compares well to previous finales, what do we think would be the long term consequences? Would NASCAR be open to a full season points format? Would there be changes made for next year? I would love to see everyone’s thoughts.

Personally, I’m hoping this is what unfolds. I want to see a NASCAR race that isn’t entirely focused on the championship battle. Let’s watch racers race!

With those who complained about the Playoffs now complaining about "The Chase" and a finale with potentially nothing to race for, what do NASCAR fans want? If we had full season points, technically the last few races could count for nothing?

Surely a better option would be first 26 races are the regular season. Make a big deal of regular season champion. Then 16 driver playoffs over ten races. Use this years points structure. No win and in.

Surely this is best of both worlds?

Honestly, it gets exhausting that people want to keep changing things. Obviously people didn't like SVG winning to get in so just eliminate the win and in.

To have the finale mean something, I just feel like the play-off format creates a bit of end of year excitement.

What do you think?

For context, I went in person, so maybe I’m biased. I know we all loathe the fuel saving stuff and yesterday for the first bit of the race it was AWFUL, but RFK saying screw it and ditching the field made it extremely interesting in my eyes. Also, it seemed like the new package went a long way. You can make a third lane, make moves to the inside, they were 200+ when going 100%, and could maneuver around how they needed to. I thought the racing was pretty damn good. The crappy parts were the fuel saving before RFK left and Chastain in the front row. I loved the race and I really thought the TV would reflect that. Is it just because Twitter is super negative all the time? Someone help me out here

I’m asking cause i’ve noticed a lot of people pointing out the “stalling” and fuel saving on plate tracks. I honestly don’t know. I just remember there used to be a minimum speed so that damaged cars weren’t running way below the flow of traffic.

There’s been a lot of comparison between the 5 team of this year and the 48 teams of years past, saying that the 5 only turned it on when they needed to.

This is in fact not true at all, as following Sonoma, Larson was -148 and 5th in points. People feel like they sandbagged because of the disastrous end to the regular season that left him -303 and in 7th. He was:

- Top 5 at Nashville until final restart where lost a tire. Finished 23rd.

-Running 3rd at Chicagoland when he self spun. Finished 34th.

-Running Top 10 in both of his wrecks at Atlanta (the second one was his fault as well). Finished 34th.

-Leading at Indy when he crashed. Finished 39th.

Including what happened at Wilkesboro and Iowa, there’s easily over 100 points that were left on the table. They’ve had top 5 speed since the 600, as they had 5 top 5’s in six races over the summer. The speed has been there the whole time.

Denny deserves the chip though; I just want full season points.

Anyone have any inside pics of Riley’s car after yesterday? Heard the inside is pretty trashed and was curious to see